Rise up to protect Robertson Road

Residents of Stillwater Creek Retirement Community on Robertson Rd. were among many people who opposed city council's plan to rename Robertson Road in Bells Corners. They took to the street earlier this year to protest the plan. City council appears to have listened and voted Wednesday to keep it as Robertson Road.
(OTTAWA SUN FILE PHOTO)

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Rick Chiarelli — his championing of the voice of the people a cruel hearsay — could, under the rules, move a motion that city council rescind its asinine vote that approved re-naming the stretch of thoroughfare in his riding of Bells Corners from Richmond Rd. and Robertson Rd. to Lloyd Francis Blvd. But will he?

Or, in the “I’m never wrong” arrogance that consumes political servants who are in power only because their salaries-paying bosses — the people — put them there, will he self-righteously opt for deaf mute?

When CFRA’s Steve Madely asked mayor Jim Watson recently if he would consider a motion to rescind the name change, he said he would if Chiarelli “after consulting with the community,” requested it.

This is the same community (of affected businesses and residents) that Chiarelli and the Bells Corners BIA he formed (run by an ex-assistant of the councillor, Alex Lewis) say strongly supported the name change in response to a “hand-delivered” survey to all of them last summer.

Yet, many members say they didn’t get any such survey, nor did the survey specify “Lloyd Francis Blvd.” as the new name. “If there was to be a name change,” says Derek Robertson (no relation to the pioneering Robertson), owner of Aado Designs Inc. on Richmond Rd., “the assumption would have been naming all of it Robertson Rd.”

Chiarelli must be thinking it very odd that the community he says wants the name change is rising up in great, passionate, opposition. Many of the “affected” businesses carried an anti-name change petition.

Despite it growing in signatures every day, it was delivered to city hall this week on the understanding, given, that it would be put on city council’s agenda for Wednesday’s (today’s) meeting. We shall see, won’t we? It had 1807 signatures in only two weeks, 111 of them business owners, 36 business managers, one landlord.

Tuesday morning, several dozen residents of Stillwater Creek Retirement Community on Robertson Rd. took to the street — vehicles honking approval — protesting the name change, and holding up signs saying “Hello, my name is Robertson” that were made, at no charge, by one of Chiarelli’s “affected” businesses, a printing company.

These signs, and others saying “Hello, my name is Richmond,” are popping up in the windows of businesses all along the Richmond/Robertson strip.

One councillor who originally voted for the name change, Peter Clark, former regional chairman, is working behind the scenes to get councillors’ support to put the issue back on the table. From this bunch? You’d have better odds believing in Harold Camping.

Liberal party supporter Rick Chiarelli, as part of his “revitalization” plan for Bells Corners, says all of it (the road) has to be named after the late Liberal politician Lloyd Francis to eliminate the public “confusion” caused by the two names.

A giant, steaming, thundering crock. It’s not confusing, revitalization does not necessitate a road name change with all the costly conversion headaches of the “affected,” and if Chiarelli’s the one gravely confused, his cure is to replace the existing signs at the intersection of Richmond Rd. and Robertson Rd. with bigger, more precise, signs.

Before Rick Chiarelli and Alex Lewis cut me off their “get back to” list, they told me that while John Robertson’s great, great, granddaughter, Barbara Fisher, was against dumping the name that honoured the area’s 19th century pioneering icon, his living great great grandson was all for it. This said to bolster their case.

But, they refused to tell me his name. Chiarelli had no problem telling a community newspaper reporter his name: Don Robertson.

Barbara Fisher says there is no great great grandson named Don Robertson. Nor does her extensive, detailed, family tree, done by a genealogist, show one.

More than a month ago she met Chiarelli and told him she’d like to speak to the great great grandson, Don Robertson. He waffled, saying it was a “privacy” issue (this after “privacy” was him giving the name to a newspaper reporter for publication).

But, he told her he would ask the great great grandson if he wanted to speak to her, and get back to her, one way or the other, the next day.

Chiarelli didn’t get back to her. She waited a few days, sent him an e-mail reminding him. As we speak, he still hasn’t got back to her. Nor has the alleged great great grandson.

I wrote a column at the time asking Don Robertson to get in touch with me with proof he’s a great great grandson. No response. My offer, Don Robertson, is still open.

Remember: YOU, the people, are the ultimate, rightful, power — not your elected servants. You either rise up, or you roll over.